Double Agent
by rach0486
Summary: John’s mind keeps wandering to someone he would rather forget.


**STARGATE ATLANTIS: Double Agent**

Summary: John's mind keeps wandering to someone he would rather forget.

Spoilers: Rising, The Intruder. "_Flipside_" – short story by Sally Malcolm published in _Stargate: SG-1/Atlantis magazine_.

Rating:T (for slightly adult content)

Pairings: John/Other (Lily Cortez). John/Elizabeth (ish).

Season: 2

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters involved…

Author's Note: I just read the back story that Sally Malcolm gave to John! It's really great – if you haven't read it, I suggest you try and get hold of it. But, there was so much left unsaid about the whole Afghanistan affair. So… here's my spin on it! Please R&R as always. Thanx. Enjoy!

PS: You don't need to have read 'Flipside' to understand this, but if you do get stuck, let me know and I'll try to fill you in.

x

_Italics _Flashback/Thought.

Double Agent

_Four weeks was a long time to be stuck on dry rock and clay. That's what he blamed it on. The hot, spicy desert air was enough to drive anyone to extremes they wouldn't usually have stooped._

_Major John Sheppard clung to these thoughts as he watched her dress. There was a routine to her movements, like everything was calculated and planned to the nail. She didn't look at him. He doubted she needed to. His part was done with. For tonight at least._

_That's how it worked – twice a week or there abouts (more when things got really crazy). They'd sneak about, let off a little 'tension' and then she'd be on her way._

'It's nothing personal_,' she always told him. Just a necessity. He made her feel human. _

_She made him feel alive._

"_What if I want it to be?" he said suddenly._

_She looked round at him, confused. She hadn't uttered a word since her arrival that night – that's how it worked._

"_What?" she queried, standing up straight, fully clothed. All their secrets hidden._

"_What if I want it to be personal? Us I mean."_

_She looked at him, a mixture of sorrow and desire crossing her face._

"_There is no 'us'," she replied, adopting the cool, professional manner she used during the daylight hours._

"_Didn't feel like that a few minutes ago," John retorted, throwing back the bed clothes and swinging his bare legs over the edge of the cot. He didn't care that he was naked, but she seemed to blush at the sight none the less._

"_This isn't anything," she said looking away. "You know that."_

"_Yeah, I know… but what if I want it to be something?"_

_She shook her head and crossed to the door. Leaving was the only way she could think to escape the conversation. She was at the door when his hand slapped against it, preventing her exit._

"_Lily," he said softly, enticingly. "Please."_

"_You're chasing a fantasy, John," she said avoiding his eyes. "There's nothing more here than –"_

"_Yes! There is!" he interrupted. "Why else would you keep coming back? I'm sure there are other pilots you could screw to come back to reality. Why me?"_

_His fingers lithely worked their way into the fabric of her blouse, teasing at its edges. He _had_ to make her stay. He'd go crazy if this carried on for much longer._

"_Please Lily," he said again, kissing her neck, taking in the scent of the desert that had embedded itself in her skin. "Please," he whispered._

_For a moment, she seemed to soften to his touch. He could sense a greater need in her than she had shown him yet. It matched his._

_But she regrouped. As she always did._

_She threw him off her with just enough force to remove him from her path but he kept his balance – just._

"_Good night, Major," she said in the same professional tone he had heard so many times before._

_She wrenched the door open as if not trusting that it was already unlocked. She cast him one last stern glance as she left, closing the door softly behind her._

_John pressed his ear to the door and listened to her retreating footfalls. He heard the door at the other end of the corridor open and then close._

_She was gone._

* * *

Agent Lily Cortez, CIA. The only woman in the world who had truly gotten to John. And she still plagued his mind. Even three years down the line and after so many incredible changes, John couldn't help but remember those five months with her. 

How they began. How they ended. And the fruitless tumbling that occurred in between.

But even with where he was now, whenever she crossed his mind, it was impossible to deny what she had done to him.

And for that, he hated her.

* * *

_July 23rd 2005:_ Earth

John stared into the mirror and swallowed hard. The last time he had been dressed like this had been at a court room in Florida, anxiously awaiting his fate for saving lives.

"_Autorotation, Lieutenant. Heard of it?"_

The memory sprang from nowhere and took him by surprise. He shook his head to dismiss it and shoved his hands into the pockets of his Blues pants. In his left pocket, his fingers hit something cool and smooth. He pulled it out and stared at the quarter that had been sitting there for the last three years.

_Heads – now you get to keep the sky. Tails – now you don't._

That's what it had felt like. The only thing deciding his fate that day was the flip of a coin – true of so many things in his life he thought.

Heads – stay alive. Tails – Wraith sucks the life out of you. Heads – you find Ford. Tails – you don't.

_Heads – you go to Atlantis. Tails – you stay in Antarctica._

Thinking back on that one, it seemed like a ridiculous decision to be stuck on. did he want to stay on a god-forsaken block of ice or actually be part of something big? And as much as he did love Antarctica, he wouldn't have traded the last year for anything.

'So what now?' he thought, staring at the coin. 'Heads – I screw up this command. Tails – I don't.' It seemed like a reasonable wager.

He tossed the coin high in the air and effortlessly caught it again. He turned it onto the back of his left hand.

"Major," a sergeant said, poking his head round the door. "They're ready for you, sir."

"Thank you, sergeant," John replied. The door closed once more.

John took a moment to check his appearance once more. Then, he gently peeled his right hand from on top of his left and checked the coin's verdict.

Heads.

He smiled. It was probably right, all things considered. But he was determined to prove it wrong. After all, he'd come this far and beaten worse odds than 50-50.

Sucking in a deep breath, he turned away from the mirror and headed to the door.

Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard. It had a nice ring to it.

* * *

"_LILY! GET DOWN!"_

_The whole embassy was in chaos as the city around them burned. They had all known that it was a matter of time before the tanks would roll through, but it still seemed surreal now it was actually happening. Great chunks of concrete were falling everywhere. Already, the outer wall of the embassy building had been half destroyed, filling the room with dust and smoke and the stench of burnt out ozone._

_Lily Cortez was on the other side of the room to John and there was no way he could get to her without coming into serious danger from the tank that was situated just twenty feet away in the street. Its gun swung round dangerously spouting its fiery ordnance in any direction it wished._

_John – crouched low – watched helplessly as Lily ducked just in time as another lump of wall shattered beside her. Her scream almost drowned out the deafening 'boom' of the tanks._

'_Why the hell did they send her?' John thought, raw with anger. 'She's not built for this!'_

_She was a strong woman, there was no denying that. But it took more than strength (both physical and mental – which she had in spades) to put up with war like this. _

_People around him began to make their way to the back of the room where the fire escape was. In all honesty, John didn't think heading outside would be any safer than staying put, but there was no way he wanted to stick around._

_And God did he ever want his helicopter at that point! If he could just get into the air and even the field up a little. But he was grounded for now. There were no choppers in the middle of the city. _

_He glanced across the room. Lily wasn't moving._

'_SHIT!' There was blood matting down her long blonde hair. Her lips were turning blue – along with a lot of the skin on her face as bruises and welts formed._

_She wasn't dead – he could tell that by looking – but she wasn't conscious either. Ignoring the certain danger he was in, John reached her side and quickly assessed her injuries. His heart clenched involuntarily when he saw the impossible angle her right elbow was in._

_Adrenaline pumped through his arteries like a drug. He had one shot at getting them both out. _Heads – both live. Tails – both die_. That was it. No half way. _

"_Major! Come on!" Lieutenant Dixon shouted from the door. "The whole building's coming down!"_

_John quickly glanced at the ceiling, and sure enough, the cracks were quickly becoming chasms. He could feel his heart beating in his mouth and was convinced that if it went any faster, he'd have a heart attack. Being as careful as he could be of Lily's injured arm, he hauled her off the floor and into a fireman's hold. He ran through the room dodging the fallen desks and falling masonry._

_Dixon held the door for as long as he dared – thankfully long enough for John to reach before it closed on him. He could hear the rattle of return fire on the streets and the wail of women clutching the bodies of their dead children._

_What he wouldn't have given for his chopper then!_

* * *

_July 23rd 2005:_ Earth

Officer after officer greeted John and shook his hand. They mumbled their congratulations to him before moving on. John smiled politely at each of them but couldn't shake the feeling that Elizabeth might have done some arm twisting to get them to come along so they could all rub their noses in the fact that John Sheppard made good.

"Congratulations, Colonel," a deep familiar voice said from behind him.

John turned sharply and was confronted with General Vidrine – a man John hadn't seen since the day he was sentenced to Antarctica.

"I must say I'm a little surprised to see you here," he said.

John stood up as straight and proud as he could.

"I have to admit, General, so am I," he replied.

Vidrine nodded. "Dr Weir has a lot of confidence in you, son. Make sure its not misplaced."

John knew what he meant. Despite Elizabeth's trust in him, it wasn't mirrored by many Air Force personnel. In fact the only reason he was being promoted today was because she had the ear of a lot of very powerful people.

"By the way," Vidrine added as he walked off. "Agent Cortez sends her regards."

John felt like he had swallowed a live grenade. "How is she?" he asked through partly clenched teeth.

"She's alright," Vidrine nodded. "She's working for Home-World Security at the moment. Got a bit of a shock when she saw your name on the Atlantis Mission list."

"I bet."

Vidrine moved away to speak to some of the other Generals in the room and John didn't fancy sticking around. This was his party, but he didn't exactly feel welcome, and his mind was suddenly confounded with all sorts of emotions he thought were long dead.

How could it be that after so long, and after knowing exactly what she had done, that he still fell to pieces on hearing her name?

He leaned against the wall out in the hallway and pulled the quarter from his pocket.

"Heads – I move on some day. Tails – I don't," he muttered under his breath. He tossed the coin into the air.

"John?"

He fumbled to catch his 'fate' and shoved it back into his pocket before turning to face Elizabeth.

"You alright?" she asked. "I saw you talking to Vidrine before –"

"Yeah, I'm fine. It was nothing. He was at my court martial is all. I wasn't expecting to see him here," he said as excuse for being absent from the party.

Elizabeth nodded. "Right. I'm sorry. I forgot about that."

"You seem to be the only one," he smiled. "You sure you want me in command of the expedition?"

"It's what you've been doing for the last year, isn't it? I have every confidence in you're abilities, even if you don't."

John smiled. He could always rely on her to say exactly the right things to pick him back up off the floor.

"Thanks," he mumbled.

"You coming back in then?"

John glanced over her shoulder at the room he had left.

"In a minute," he replied. "I need to clear my head for a bit."

* * *

_The first time John had woken up in the morning to find Lily sleeping next to him, he thought he was dreaming. She never stayed the whole night. It wasn't how it worked. But since he had saved her life at the embassy, things had been different. She had been different. If only in the fact that she was sleeping at this time of the day at all._

_She had told him on several occasions that since she had been out here, she hadn't had a decent night's sleep. There was something odd in the air that kept her awake, and yet here she was, as peaceful as he had ever seen her; sleeping in his arms._

_John looked at her face and traced the smooth line from her forehead to her chin. Her eyes fluttered open._

"_Morning," he whispered placing a kiss in her hair._

_Lily didn't flinch or sit up in horror for staying so long. She smiled and stretched like a contented cat before settling back into his side, her head resting on his chest._

"_A girl could get used to this," she said sleepily._

"_So could a guy," John replied. He glanced down at Lily's face to gauge her reaction to what he had said._

_She was smiling._

* * *

_July 24th 2005:_ Earth

John couldn't wait to be on his way back to Atlantis. He sat in his hotel room turning the coin over in his hands.

"_Major, cut it out! It makes me jumpy." Sheppard doubted that a nuke, cocked and loaded would make her jumpy…_

There it was again, in his head. The constant dwelling on what had sent him to Antarctica and then to Atlantis. Colonel Miranda Torrance – his defence attorney in Florida – seemed to have had very little time for him. She was there to plead his case and present his side of the story. But that was it. She thought he deserved the whole damn library thrown at him.

When he was let off with a crappy reassignment, she was utterly speechless.

'Well,' she had said. 'I hope you realise how fortunate you are, Major. It seems luck is on your side.'

Actually, it was Lily that was on his side – though it was more out of guilt and compassion than an act of selfless kindness. He still wondered just what had been in that little manila envelope that finally swayed the judge and the panel members in his favour.

She hadn't stuck around long enough afterwards for John to catch up with her. She probably thought that would put her life in jeopardy – Lord knew he still wanted to kill her at that point…

* * *

_His was the first face she saw when she came around. His was the only face she wanted to see. And that surprised her._

"_John?" she said groggily._

_He squeezed her hand in reply._

"_You're gonna be fine," he assured her. "A little bruised, but fine."_

_Lily nodded and tears started to run down her cheeks. John carefully gathered her into his arms._

"_It's OK. I've got you. You're safe," he said quietly, not caring for the other people around who could see what was happening between them._

_Two weeks later, she was released from hospital and everything changed._

_His tent at base camp wasn't as comfortable as his room at the embassy, and he hadn't been expecting any company there. But she came to him._

_The canvas flap that served as a door brushed aside to admit her and she stood near it looking at him for a long time._

_John stared back at her, waiting for her to make the first move. Usually, she'd have his shirt off him by now. But she hadn't moved._

"_You alright?" he asked unable to take the tension that was mounting between them._

_Lily nodded._

_She moved at last and came to stand in front of him. Her hand traced his hair line and down his face. It felt like fire to his skin where she touched. How did she do that!_

_She kissed him, just as she had done countless times before. Only this time there was something more familiar in it, rather than the detachment John had become so used to from her._

"_Well, that was different," he commented when she broke away from him. _

_Lily looked down._

"_I haven't been fair to you, have I?" she said._

" _Not really," he answered. He could tell this was taking a lot of courage to say to him, but he couldn't find it in him to offer his sympathy. _

"_I'm sorry," she said, still avoiding his eyes. "I guess… I guess when you got me out back there I realised that…" She cut off at a loss for words._

"_You realised what? That I wasn't the jerk you hoped I was? That I actually care what happens to you and that you're not just some _easy lay_?" He emphasised the last two words. He was angry and couldn't account for it other than to say that he was crazy about her._

_Lily flinched at what he said. He was right and the worse thing was that he knew it. She couldn't pretend that the last four weeks had meant anything more to her than that. But it was different now. _

_She sank onto the bed next to him and buried her head in her hands._

"_I'm so sorry!" she said, tears filling up in her eyes. "I don't know why I –"_

"_Treated me like dirt?" he finished for her, rising from next to her and heading to the other side of the tent. He crossed his arms across his chest._

"_Yeah," she said quietly, looking at him at last. Her eyes pleaded for some kind of kindness from him._

"_And now you think you can just come in here, bat you eyelashes and we'll just be cool from there, right?"_

_Lily didn't answer._

"_Cause it's not gonna work like that, Lily. I really like you! I can't stop thinking about you most of the time and when I saw you down like that at the embassy, I thought you were dead – do you have any idea how frightening that was!" He began pacing. "I mean… God! I don't care if you don't want some sort of serious relationship or… whatever! Just some acknowledgment that there is something going on."_

_He stopped at last and finally noticed the tears flowing from her eyes coupled with the feint smile on her lips._

"_What?" he said, feeling very self-conscious all of a sudden. She had never looked at her like that before._

"_I had no idea you –" she sniffed " – One of the most surprising things that struck me when I came round and saw you there was how relieved I was that it was you… look," she stood up. "I've never been good at the whole emotions thing but… well, what I'm trying to say is… I care about you. More than I realised."_

_John was suddenly rooted to the spot with shock, joy and what he could only describe as the beginnings of love for the woman in front of him._

"_And…" she continued when she didn't say anything. "I wanted you to know I'm –"_

_John suddenly closed the distance between them and kissed her, not wanting to know anything else of what she had to say. She cared for him! That's all he needed to know._

* * *

_July 24th 2005:_ Earth

It had been the beginning of their five months together. A relationship that got him into trouble on more than one occasion. His wing commander cautioned him several times – not to break it off with her, but that if he couldn't be objective in his duties, he would be reassigned. John rather thought the man hoped for the chance as it was. They rarely saw eye to eye and only got along because John had learned to hold his tongue and follow orders.

John leaned his head back against the wall and listened to the dull rumble of the odd car passing in the street bellow. He thought of Lily.

They were happy – a picture perfect couple – right up to the day it was over. Then it was _over_. With no chance of going back.

He remembered the look on her face when she entered the court room in Florida. She didn't look at him – not even a sideways glance to see if he'd noticed her – but she looked nervous. She was acting on her own, without her superiors. This was something she had learnt from him as everything she did was by the book.

Maybe that was what she liked about him – he was 'dangerous', unpredictable and completely opposite to her. But she stooped to his level that day to get him out of a jam.

Glancing at the clock by his bed, John sighed. It was nearly 0200 hours. He sight and placed the quarter on the table beside him and stretched out on the bed.

His eyes closed, but his mind kept working.

* * *

"_John," Lily returned to the cockpit, her face impenetrable. "You heard the colonel. Turn back," she demanded._

_He ignored her. Why was she pushing this so much anyway?_

"_John!" She almost sounded panicked._

_In a flash, he understood. And he knew he couldn't prove any of it._

"_He's talking bullshit, Lily! And you know it. Your guys sent them in there and they're gonna leave them behind."_

'_Not on my watch,' he thought._

_Lily was silent. That was confirmation enough that he was right. The only remaining surprise was the acute sense of betrayal which accompanied the suspicion that had been lying in his gut all day._

"_Heads up in the back, Sergeant," Dixon said quietly to their gunner. "Looks like we're going in hot, so get ready."_

'_Too right we're going in hot!' John thought. 'In more ways than one.'_

_Lily held her peace, storing it up for when she could really make it effective – when they got back to base John suspected._

"_43 acknowledge!" the colonel said again over the radio. "43 I am ordering you to –"_

_John killed the channel. Dixon stared straight out of the front window trying to look as if he was completely at ease with what John was doing. But he looked nervous._

"_Interference, sun spots, earth rays, who knows…" he commented seeing the kid's expression. "Dixon, find me a landing zone and then try to raise those poor bastards and tell them where to go."_

_Dixon did as he was told. He had learnt not to argue with Sheppard when he was in a fowl mood. Now, his air commander was sat staring through the front window of the Pave Hawk with a face worse than thunder. _

_Justice had always been a strong concept to John. And it went deeper than any chain of command to him. That was something Lily just didn't get, and the way she was sulking in the back seat only drove that realisation home harder. And it hurt._

"_There's a clearing about three clicks south west of here," Dixon said, cutting through John's bitter thoughts. "The Rangers aren't far from there as it is."_

"_Good," John replied. "Get the word out. We'll meet them there."_

_Dixon quickly made the transmission and then left the cockpit to tell their gunner what was going on. Lily slipped into the empty seat._

"_John, are you out of your mind!" she hissed. "You were given a direct order, what the _hell_ do you think you're doing!"_

"_The right thing," he answered not looking up from the controls._

"_You're ending your career, you realise that?" _

"_Not now, Lily, damnit!" he snapped. "We're getting them out and that's final."_

_Lily shook her head._

"_What the hell were they doing there anyway?" he asked. He looked right at her – demanding an answer._

"_They're job!" she retorted. "Which is more than I can say for you right now."_

"_This is my job."_

"_You're supposed to follow orders," she said in a hushed tone. "You have no idea what you're doing here. What you're getting us into. You're jeopardising the whole –" she stopped dead._

_John's head snapped round to look at her so fast it scared her._

"_You _did_ know," he said in shock. "And you were just going to leave them!"_

"_The mission was compromised, John. We won't risk other people's lives for blatant screw ups!"_

"_NO-ONE GETS LEFT BEHIND!" he bellowed. "Ever!"_

_Lily stared at him, not alarmed at his tone to her. She was just as irate as he was._

"_Don't be so naïve, John. This is _war_!" she said eventually._

"_All the more reason to stick together."_

_Lily shook her head. Even after five months, she couldn't get used to his idealistic absolutes._

_John's attention was drawn away by a sudden flash of red light bellow them. It was the rangers. They were signalling their position._

"_Get into the back," he told Lily. "Tell Dixon and Illario we're going in."_

_Lily didn't say anything. She knew when she was being shunned._

"_This won't end well," she promised and left him alone in the dark._

_John focused hard on the burning flair. The harsh sting of betrayal clung to his gut but somehow didn't hurt like he thought it would. Lily was complicated. It hadn't taken him long to work that out._

_He took a deep breath as he began to descend. His mind was completely focused on what he had to do now. Lily would have to wait._

'Heads – we get out alive. Tails – we don't,' _he thought. Either way, his relationship with her was over._

* * *

_July 24th 2005:_ Earth

He couldn't stand remembering that conversation. It was the first indication he had that she was not the woman he thought she was. She wasn't the woman he loved.

"_You're chasing a fantasy, John,_" she had said to him once. Oh how right she was.

John opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling – what he could see of it in the dim light of the room. He knew he wasn't going to get any sleep. Not with her playing through his mind like a broken record.

At last, he gave up trying.

* * *

_He was still smiling when the MPs escorted him to a waiting Humvee. He glanced back at the battered helicopter as they bundled him into the car. He saw Lily talking to the colonel. No doubt she was telling him all about the recklessness he had shown throughout the impromptu rescue mission._

_He didn't care. They were alive. All of them. Even the rangers – who were completely oblivious to the fact that they should have been left in the desert._

_The Humvee moved off and carted John into the main offices of the base._

_After three gruelling hours of listening to his superiors spouting terms like 'Proper Procedure' and 'Chain of Command', along with great streams of expletives, John felt drained. The long and short of it all boiled down to the fact that as soon as he set foot back home he was heading straight for a Court Martial hearing for direct insubordination and (heaven forbid!) damaging Air Force property._

_They ordered him to his quarters until further notice. On his way he encountered Lily. She was ahead of him in the hall – oblivious to his presence._

_He jogged to catch up with her and grabbed hold of her arm, throwing her hard against the wall._

"_Hey!" she protested, not realising who she was talking to._

_John towered in front of her._

"_Why you?" he asked. "Why did they put you on my round today?"_

"_Come on, John," she cooed. "It's standard for a CIA Agent to accompany each division in a take down like that."_

"_No," he insisted. "There's more. CIA go with the leaders. That's not me. Why did they put you with me today?"_

_Lily looked at him, a slight smile reaching her eyes. He understood._

"_DAMNIT!" he shouted hitting his fist into the wall beside her head. "They knew I'd want to go in for the Rangers, didn't they?"_

_Lily nodded. "They figured you wouldn't want to risk it if I was on board."_

_He felt like a Pave Hawk had just landed on top of his lungs._

"_Why?" he demanded. _

"_The mission had been compromised. It was deemed too risky to get them out. Too many other operations were at stake in the area."_

"_So you were just gonna leave them for dead?" He didn't want to listen to what he was hearing. "I can't believe you would agree to let that happen."_

_Lily shrugged. "It wasn't in our best interest to get them out."_

_John saw red. "Bullshit! You all knew exactly what was going on before they even left. Did they know there wasn't any back up coming for them?"_

"_Of course not," she answered too coolly. "Do you really expect anyone to go into a situation like that without thinking there's someone looking out for them?"_

_John took a step back from her and looked her up and down._

"_What is this?" he asked in disbelief. "This isn't you."_

_Lily laughed. "Oh come off it, John! You should know by now not everything's black and white. This is war, damnit! People die. People get left behind. It sucks, but that's how it works."_

"_No. That may be OK by you, but to me that's just _not_ acceptable."_

_She smiled. "I know. That's why I was stationed with you today. I was supposed to talk you out of the rescue. We knew you'd spot the trucks. And we knew what you'd think."_

"_So you were there to protect my career," he said harshly._

"_Yes," she answered matter-of-factly. "And you threw it all back at me. I'm not getting you out of this, you know that right?"_

"_Of course," he said. His voice was cold. "Why would you risk your life's work for a blatant screw up?"_

_Lily recognised her own words from the cockpit of the Pave Hawk._

"_Don't turn this on me, John. I tried to warn you."_

_She walked off with her head high. That's the last he saw of her until the trial…_

_She came through the door and his fingers clenched around the armrests of his chair, and in a way he was surprised to find that he still cared. That he could still remember the scent of her hair and the feel of her skin._

_He wished he'd known what that envelope had said. All he was told was that the Rangers had gathered vital intell that would have been lost if he hadn't pulled them out._

_It was the only thing that had made the judge send him to Antarctica rather than jail._

* * *

_July 24th 2005:_ Earth

In some way, John thought he should be grateful for Lily. She did after all help him out in the end. And it was her that secured his then future in Antarctica – without which, he never would have ended up on Atlantis. But there was still too much hurt in him to forgive her completely. That had been demonstrated to him when the mere mention of her name set him on edge. Exactly as it used to.

He paced round the hotel room full of nervous energy that wouldn't let him rest. It was a sensation he was used to. Every time there was something preying on his mind, his conscience kept him moving until it was resolved.

_Heads – call. Tails – don't call, _he thought looking at the coin on his nightstand.

He stared at it for a while. He couldn't decide whether he wanted to trust that decision to a lump of metal. In the end, he turned away from the idea and resumed pacing. But he could still sense it in his mind.

_Call. Don't call. Call. Don't Call._

Finally, he roughly picked up the quarter – if only to silence his own thoughts. He threw it in the air and let it land on the carpet.

Tails.

Somehow, that wasn't the answer he wanted. Ignoring the talisman's advice, John sat down on the edge of the bed and picked up the telephone.

'She'll probably have a different number by now,' he thought as he dialled. 'Or she won't be up at this time of night.'

The phone clicked a few times before it started ringing. The shrill, sudden noise made John jump, but it was what he had decided. He was seeing it through.

"Hello?"

John's heart all but stopped at the sound of her voice. He was speechless. There was nothing he could think of to say to her.

It surprised him that he still cared. That she could still cause him to falter so completely.

"Hello?" she said again, sounding a little more concerned.

John had had enough. He dropped the receiver back into its cradle and ran his hands through his messy hair. He breathed deeply, trying to steady his nerves. He really couldn't wait to be on his way back to Atlantis. To know that there was a whole galaxy of space between him and Lily Cortez.

Lily Cortez. The only woman in the world who had truly gotten to John. And she plagued his mind. Even three years down the line and after so many incredible changes, John couldn't help but remember those five months with her.

How they began. How they ended. And the fruitless tumbling that occurred in between.

But even with where he was now, whenever she crossed his mind, it was impossible to deny what she had done to him.

And for that, he hated her.

* * *

Author's Note: OK. Hope that wasn't too confusing for everyone. Don't forget to review! Thanx. 


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